


you know it's worth the nights we wait

by seeingrightly



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 22:46:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7073596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parrish doesn’t come to school, and when he resurfaces, his cheek is tinged all sorts of colors.</p>
<p>It shocks Ronan still, even though he knows, to see bruises on Parrish's skin. It doesn't really make sense. Parrish isn't a porcelain doll, isn't a fine sculpture the way Gansey is, isn't smudgy and muted like Noah. His skin is tanned and freckled in equal measure, never losing a slightly weathered look even in the winter, which he probably hates. He looks lived in, a little worn, battered - well, that's too literal, isn't it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you know it's worth the nights we wait

**Author's Note:**

> i woke up from a dead sleep at 8am thinking in ronan's voice and started writing this. so. i don't know what this is.
> 
> thx 2 [melissa](theverytiredgirl.tumblr.com) for editing etc
> 
> title from ra ra riot's "st. peter's day festival"

1.

 

Parrish doesn’t come to school, and when he resurfaces, his cheek is tinged all sorts of colors.

 

It shocks Ronan still, even though he knows, to see bruises on Parrish's skin. It doesn't really make sense. Parrish isn't a porcelain doll, isn't a fine sculpture the way Gansey is, isn't smudgy and muted like Noah. His skin is tanned and freckled in equal measure, never losing a slightly weathered look even in the winter, which he probably hates. He looks lived in, a little worn, battered - well, that's too literal, isn't it.

 

Ronan's shocked by glimpses of fading green or stark purpling bruises under uniform sleeves and through threadbare holes, even though half the time the mark turns out to be motor oil, grease, a smudge and a smell that Ronan wants to lick off of him, stains that are always there but that he doesn't have to hate.

 

He can't imagine looking at Parrish and seeing him as something to break. He knows Parrish isn't porcelain, despite the delicate angles of his face, the gentle curl of his hair; he knows there's something tougher underneath, born that way and then made to grow stronger.

 

Ronan wants to skate his fingertips over each bruise he sees, routine inspection. He knows some of them are from work, from dumb shit Parrish does with Ronan during the little free time he allows himself. He knows some of them are not. He wants to dust over them, use a magnifying glass to check for fingerprints and then return the favor to their maker.

 

2.

 

There’s something new inside Adam Parrish, and it’s something Ronan made. He didn’t put it there, he’s still not sure if he wants it out in the world, in the open, let alone a part of someone else. A part of someone who seems to see into Ronan even without supernatural help.

 

Maybe that’s better, though. Better that it’s someone who notices Ronan looking at him and lets him do it, doesn’t say anything, swallows up his stares and his insults and his magical fucking forest like it’s nothing, like Ronan’s got smooth edges instead of teeth and claws.

 

He thought, at first, that it’d change him more. Or change him differently. That it’d make him more like Ronan somehow. Instead it’s just made him weird, weirder, glowing a little brighter and sharper when the light hits him right, a little more steel in his voice when he knows what he’s talking about, a lot more shaken when he doesn’t.

 

Ronan waits for him to hate it, having this piece of Ronan inside of him. But he keeps waiting.

 

3.

 

Ronan dreams up Adam's stuff.

 

Little things. His Latin textbook, the one Ronan borrows when he shows up to school, all the notes in the margins accurate, their handwriting impeccable. An already-grimy rag, heavy with motor oil. His left sneaker.

 

These Ronan leaves in a dark corner at St. Agnes. Adam might notice he has two, or he might not.

 

He dreams Adam’s ratty keychain, the duplicate just as ready to fall apart, and leaves it on the hood of the Hondoyota without waiting to see what happens.

 

There are things he dreams wrong. Adam's Coca-Cola t-shirt, worn nearly transparent in a few places. Ronan doesn't know what the material really feels like, and when he wakes up holding it he throws it like he's been burned. He doesn't want to feel it wrong.

 

This he dumps in the back of his closet and never touches again.

 

Once, he's startled awake while holding Adam's hand in a dream, tries to pull away before he wakes, doesn't want to bring back a dream Adam. He wakes up angry with himself, muscles locked and fingers still tangled together.

 

When he opens his eyes, the fingers are attached to a palm that doesn't attach to anything. There's no blood. The hand just stops halfway through.

 

This he buries, and then he throws up.

 

He dreams up things that aren’t Adam’s yet. Things he knows are for Adam. A new bike lock, to replace a broken one. He doesn’t really mean to dream it up.

 

Sometimes, though, it’s on purpose. Night after night of dreaming the same thing til it comes out right. Sometimes those join the t-shirt in the back of Ronan’s closet, and sometimes they wind up in Adam’s car with a note.

 

4.

 

He’s going to do it.

 

Ronan’s going to kiss Adam. He just doesn’t know when. He’s pretty sure it’ll work, when he does.

 

Ronan will move in close, and Adam will go very still and keep looking at him, and Ronan will press their lips together, and it’ll take Adam a moment to respond but he will. Ronan is pretty sure he will.

 

There’s a moment, every day, that could be the moment. Sometimes he’s not sure yet if it’s the moment, and then there’s a better one later, but every day there’s a moment where he could do it.

 

Sometimes they’re in his car outside St. Agnes, picking Adam up after he’s been at work for hours, not enough time to shower before Gansey shot out a text telling Ronan where to meet him. Adam slides into the passenger seat exhausted but with bright eyes, and Ronan doesn’t pull out of the parking lot until Adam asks where they’re going.

 

Sometimes they’re on the edge of Cabeswater, not really sure how safe it is to go inside anymore, not really sure what it’s doing to either of them now. A pause before something bad happens. Maybe a pause before something good too.

 

On the floor at Monmouth, sitting among Gansey’s Henrietta model, wondering where Noah is and how weird he’ll be next time he shows up. Ronan thinks the word _opportunity_ and Noah, disembodied, whispers in his ear not to throw it away. Across a Henrietta backroad, Adam makes a face like Noah’s talking to him too.

 

At the Barns. There’s usually more than one moment when they’re at the Barns.

 

5.

 

Ronan knows exactly what he’s holding when he wakes up. He has to commit the feeling to memory, after all, make it real so he can make it real. He has to know exactly what he wants so he can bring it with him.

 

And sometimes he doesn’t want to bring it with him, but it comes anyway, and even then he still knows exactly what he’ll feel when his body starts to work again, exactly what he’ll see, what he’ll have to run from.

 

He’s used to knowing exactly what he’s holding when he wakes up, and he’s used to not being able to feel it yet, used to knowing it’s there before he can actually tell.

 

Once, though, he wakes up, totally awake and able to feel and holding _something_ , and that’s not how it works, that’s wrong, and he panics. He’s on his ass on the floor before he realizes what he’s sharing his bed with is _Adam_.

 

Adam, who rolls over to level him with a slightly concerned, mostly groggy look.

 

“Did you dream something?” he asks.

 

“No,” Ronan says. “You’re real.”

 

“Thanks for noticing,” Adam says, and then he’s out cold again.

 

Ronan climbs back into the bed, moves in close and puts his arm back over Adam’s side, presses his face into his neck. Kisses the grease stain there he missed in the shower. Rubs a thumb over a hole in Adam’s t-shirt.

 

He breathes and goes back to sleep and dreams about what he already has.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [lydia---branwell](lydia---branwell.tumblr.com)


End file.
